I think this Trump guy can pull off bringing back manufacturing jobs to workers if he really wants to by subtly but incessantly taxing any commercially automated industries and significantly rebating them proportionately to the presence of a larger live workforce.

The current flow of global trade is a product of a minimum 50 years of planning and will be very difficult to alter.

The problem is that there are no quick fixes with returning manufacturing jobs to America, it's not like there's some sort of Insta-Factory-construction where the one can just wave his magic wand and production begins. You need to develop facilities (and the modern high tech factory has very specific site and location requirements so it's not just any field) and go through permitting, code, and environmental impact statements and you have to build your supply chains, and, depending on industry, it's going to be 5-10 years to build from scratch and get a site operational and producing.

In this time, the competing countries will be adjusting their production processes much faster than the US coz they are more flexible and don't need to start from scratch such that when the US is ready to produce say in 5 years, the competing countries will be ready to offer the same product plus tariff at a cheaper price.

At this stage global trade is too interlinked to change direction overnight. One would need about 20 years to completely alter the flow of goods.

To add onto what Obi just said. You can bring back all the manufacturing you want back to US but the consumer cares most about price.

There is no way the US can make socks, bras, panties, utensils, shavers, knifes, scissors etc cheaper than China or Bangladesh or India..... I picked these because when most people think of manufacturing they only think of cars or some other high tech gadget. Most manufacturing is for day to day products that are consumed by most people in the world..... and in this segment the US has no chance.